DailyDirt: Beyond Simple Mice And Touchscreens
from the urls-we-dig-up dept
The keyboard and mouse combination has been a standard for several decades now, but there's always room for some improvement. Touchscreens are a nice way to interact with phones and tablets (and phablets), and maybe someday we won't be able to keep our greasy fingers off our 5K desktop and laptop screens either. We're always looking out for interesting input devices, and here are just a few other input methods that might get popular.- If you're using a small touchscreen, it doesn't always make sense to cover up parts of it with your finger. Apple will offer its "digital crown" as an alternative to the touchscreen, but there's also a gesture recognition app for devices that have a camera and some decent processing power. [url]
- Everything gets smaller and smaller, so what's smaller than a smart watch? A smart ring. An integrated accelerometer and some touch sensors could make a wearable ring a more convenient gesture input device. Battery life might be a bit of a challenge for such a small device, but then again the first "smart rings" don't actually look that small. [url]
- More advanced touchscreens may be able to tell the difference between a finger, a knuckle, a fingernail or a stylus. But will these futuristic devices be able to understand the frustration behind a closed fist banging on them? [url]
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Filed Under: digital crown, gesture recognition, input devices, sensors, smart ring, smart watch, stylus, touchscreens, ui, wearables
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Someone's been watching too much Minority Report
Yeah, a big touchscreen looks great on a movie screen. In real life... not so much. There's a very good reason why every interface device that's ever actually been successful can be used, in its entirety, with the hands in a resting position, minimal wrist and elbow movements, and zero shoulder movement.
(And just to head off nitpickers, yes, the Wii remote violates this principle for some games, and yes, it's incredibly successful. Same with certain highly specialized video game controllers, such as the Guitar Hero guitar. These are highly specialized devices, though, that are not used for extended periods, nor for general-purpose device control. The standard usage of the Wii remote involves minimal movement; games where you swing it like a tennis racket are the exception.)
The thing about holding your hands up and moving them around in broad, sweeping gestures is that your arms will get tired surprisingly quickly. Go ahead, try it. Watch Minority Report and watch what they're doing on the screens, then try to do the exact same thing on a wall. See if you can keep it up for even ten minutes. But you can sit at a keyboard-and-mouse all day and not get worn out.
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Re: Someone's been watching too much Minority Report
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Re: Someone's been watching too much Minority Report
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